Dalupa Pottery: Indigenous Art Poem by MELVIN BANGGOLLAY

Dalupa pottery: Indigenous Art
Melvin Banggollay

Women of Dalupa in Pasil, Kalinga
Are known to be potters of beauty
As they mold with great stamina
mud to express their creativity
eliciting their culture’s aroma
and showing their own ingenuity.

As indigenous people of Kalinga
Endowed with rich culture’s beauty
They truly have a distinct enigma
To transform mud with artistry,
Into traditional pots or banga
And other stuff of immense utility.

Out of clay dug from earth’s strata,
Different product can be patiently
Made with prudent hand’s vendetta
Against indolence that begets opportunity
To make products with nature’s aroma
And do magic to show one’s fury.

But for all the men of barangay Dalupa
Pottery is a feminine industry
And never for the men or the Banna
To be involved for it’s an act of sterility;
a taboo to practice among the Ikalinga
that can tarnish their status and dignity.

But when DTI intervened strategically
And trained the Dalupa women patiently
On pottery and mold making recently
With a male trainer from Sta. Maria, Isabela;
Their husband and other men of Dalupa
Were amazed to behold such man with a “pita” (Soil)
Merrily, gently and passionately mixing
Joyfully, tenderly and lovely dancing
Around a potters wheel while molding
A mixture of clay with water therapy
While touching it with his magic’s fury
Then after a while, stood a jar of beauty.


Inspired by what they had witnessed and seen
The men of Dalupa with their ego shaken
Tried for the first time, share the burden
Of digging clay from a high mountain’s foot,
Carrying these down even with aching tooth,
And pounding them with mortar and pestle loathe.
After which, they begin to cheerfully display
How they lovely caress and mold the clay
Just how they touch a flower without dismay.
After a while, they behold their own art
Like decorative miniatures they love to start
Where they displayed their own skill and part.